


No Rest for the Wicked

by anamuan



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: 5+1 Things, F/M, Flirting, Flustered Cullen Rutherford, Kirkwall (Dragon Age), Spoilers, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-25
Updated: 2018-08-25
Packaged: 2019-07-02 04:01:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15788541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anamuan/pseuds/anamuan
Summary: Hawke is a shameless flirt. Cullen blushes very prettily.Or, five times Hawke flirts with Cullen, and one time she doesn't.





	No Rest for the Wicked

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lionheart](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lionheart/gifts).



Sauntering nonchalantly into the Gallows, staff on her back, always makes Hawke feel a little giddy with daring. It's not just that it's full of templars--the entire city is crawling with templars. It's the irrepressible glee of getting away with being an apostate _directly under their noses_! So when she sees Knight Captain Cullen framed by weeping bronze statues, Hawke really can't help approaching. The only thing better than traipsing through the Gallows is stopping to have a friendly chat with the _Knight Captain_.

"I've heard some...disturbing rumours about you lately, Hawke. I hope they aren't true."

" _Which_ rumours?" Hawke asks, pitching her voice low and grinning wickedly through her lashes at him just to watch him squirm. "I could visit later, say this evening, and you could tell me all about them. I'm sure we could arrange for a live demonstration of some of the more fun ones."

Hawke isn't disappointed. And Cullen blushes very prettily, if she's being honest.

"Maybe _don't_ bait the nice templar," Carver says later, face sour. Hawke laughs, and his expression sours further, but she knows it wouldn't help to voice any of the things he's been thinking: if they catch you, there's nothing I can do to save you.

That's all the more reason _to_ flirt. If they catch her, Hawke thinks, she'd better have had her fun first.

*

Hawke is the first to admit that this started as a lark--done for the adrenaline rush, and continued because it was genuinely fun. The Knight Captain, for all his success in the order, is charmingly easy to bait. His pleased embarrassment is endearing, and given his rank, especially refreshing.

Her attitude changes after returning Keran to the Gallows. It's hard to view Cullen in the same light after that, after being told that, due to an accident of birth, she isn't a person, nor should she be treated with the simple consideration that is a person's due. It's also hard to view their relationship the same way: what was before an easy game, light fun tempered with the respect he'd earned by genuinely caring about what happened to the young men and women in his charge, becomes something sharper, edged with sarcasm.

Of course, this means she only flirts more aggressively now, using it to derail conversations before they can lead to questions of personhood and oppression. This, too, is a game. Hawke visits the Gallows no less often, and when she's there, she may actually talk to Cullen more than before.

The shadows are long in the courtyard by the time she's finished haggling with the armourer. The last ferry of the day approaches slowly from the city proper. Hawke could stand at the dock watching it, or she could find her entertainments elsewhere. With Knight Captain Cullen still standing in the courtyard, the choice is easy to make.

Hawke sees her opening after asking an innocuous question about the Templar Order.

"It used to be that templars were welcomed wherever they went, defending people from dark magics," Cullen says, face darkening. "Now the townspeople are as likely to slam their doors as offer a bed."

"I've got a bed to offer," she interrupts. Hawke smirks, and gives Cullen an obvious once-over. He stutters to a stop mid-thought to swallow audibly. He doesn't take a step back, but Hawke can tell that's only because that would make it seem like he was running. Fereldans are taught young that if you flee, a hound will give chase.

"That wasn't quite what I meant when I said that. I was more," he coughs, trying to regain his composure. "Inns. Overnight. Sleeping."

"Was it not?" Hawke asks, feigning surprised misunderstanding. "I admit there would be _very_ little sleeping, but it could be an inn if you prefer. Goodness knows I didn't intend to introduce you to my mother! Sneaking you out in the morning might be a tad difficult," she pauses, tapping a finger against her chin. "You'd probably have to stay two nights."

Hawke's damnably pale skin always showed colour easily. Cullen's complexion is similar, and it's fascinating the way the flush starts in his cheeks and then spreads until his entire face is flaming. Hawke licks her lips deliberately, and watches his flush flow down his neck and disappear under his plate, who knows how far down. If she bites her lip, she might get him bright red from neck to knees--but the bell on the ferry chimes, and she's not spending the night in the Gallows just for a bit of sport.

"That's my boat, I'm afraid," she says. "If you're ever in need of a bed, Knight Captain, mine will always be open for you."

*

The Deep Roads change Hawke. She gains a fortune, and loses her little brother to the Grey Wardens. He's happy to be striking out away from the shadow of her reputation, but her mother is still angry with her for not taking better care of her baby boy.

Still, there _are_ benefits, Hawke thinks, crossing the Gallows' courtyard to speak to Knight Captain Cullen before the next ferry to the docks. Her time in the dark left her with an appreciation for people who are trying to do better, be better than they were.

"Hawke, the new scion of the Amell family!" Cullen greets her warmly. "I knew an Amell once," he says, voice going dreamy. "She was a special woman, never met her like again." Cullen trails off, and then seems to snap back to the present, all business again. "Anyway, what can I do for you?"

"Another Amell? You don't mean my cousin, the Hero of Ferelden? Mother says it was quite the scandal...poor Aunt Revka. Lucky Mother never had any mageborn children." Varric nearly chokes on his tongue at her audacity.

Hawke doesn't spare him a glance and changes the subject. "But it sounds like you more than simply _knew_ her. It sounds rather...intimate," she says slyly. "What would your colleagues think, consorting with a mage! Even if she was the saviour of all Thedas and the end of the Fifth Blight."

Cullen shifts on his feet like it's the ground that's too warm instead of the tips of his ears.

"I suppose it _does_ speak to your good taste," Hawke muses.

"No!" Cullen sputters. "It wasn't like that, she would never, I would never, I mean, I was meant to kill her!" Hawke exaggerates her gasp of shock. "I mean," Cullen takes a breath, gathering his poise. "I was at her Harrowing."

"Well, that rather takes all the fun out of it."

"After everything that happened, I look back on that time with a certain rueful fondness," Cullen concedes. "I was so very innocent."

" _That_ sounds like a story," Hawke says.

"It is not, it is not a _good_ story," Cullen says. "The Circle fell. Demons, abominations everywhere. My fellow templars slain, and, imprisoned, I--" his voice breaks, or he breaks off, unable to finish. Hawke, for once at a loss for words, holds her peace.

"Perhaps another time," Cullen says at last, pale under the Marcher sun. "Maker watch over you, Hawke."

*

"Is there anything I can help the templars with?" Hawke asks Cullen after they've dispensed with greetings. She has an itch under her skin lately, to be out and doing and moving, some kind of restlessness caught from the rising tensions in the city.

"Oh, you're kind of offer but after what happened with Tarohne three years ago, the Knight Commander has closed ranks. She's eliminated all work with outsiders."

"That's a shame," Hawke says sincerely, and then sees an opportunity to exploit. There are, after all, more ways than one to release a little of her pent up tension. She shifts to cock one hip out and does her best to look coquettish. "But if not the Templar Order, perhaps there is something I could do to aid _you_."

She bats her eyes, adding, " _Personally_?"

"What- what could I need help with apart from the Templar Order?" Cullen manages gamely.

"You seem stressed. I'm sure I could help you with _that_ ."

Cullen takes a deep breath, face slowly going red from the center out in waves of increasingly darker colour. "I thank you for your kind offer, but I assure you that it's nothing I can't handle myself."

"Is that so?" Hawke asks, blinking wide eyes at him, before breaking into a smirk. "I suppose I can't blame you. _I_ certainly want to handle you myself as well."

One of Cullen's hands comes up and does a sort of confused dance midair like he _wants_ to just hide his face in his hands, but eventually settles at the back of his neck, which is itself so bright that it looks as though it must feel hot even through his armour. "I, that is, I mean," Cullen stutters.

Hawke takes pity on him, remembering the rumours she'd ferreted out about the broken circle. She gives in to the unusual impulse to go easy on him. "Well, if you do happen to think of anything that needs my attention, you need only send word," she says, taking a step back. "I'm afraid I have other business to attend at the moment, but I'd always make time for _you_."

"Maker's breath," Cullen mutters as she turns away. She doesn't think she is supposed to have heard him. Laughing, Hawke raises one hand in a casual salute, and keeps on her way.

*

"Hawke! It's been a long time!" Cullen calls to her as she strides across the Gallows courtyard. She had been on her way to deliver a spider gland to the herbalist, but she swerves in her path to speak to Cullen first.

"Well, you know," Hawke says, shrugging expressively. "No rest for the wicked."

Cullen actually laughs. Hawke doesn't think she's ever heard it before, despite their many years of acquaintance. She wasn't entirely sure that he _did_ , between his temperament and his history. "Wicked? I don't know if that's an accurate description, with all the help you've given the Order." It's quite a nice laugh, full of warm affection.

She decides to press her advantage. She's always been charming. Carver had hated that about her, not understanding that being charming was as much about survival as not being noticed in the first place: if someone already liked you, they were less likely to believe whatever distressing rumour they heard the miller's husband whispering later.

"I think you haven't been speaking to the right people, Knight Captain," Hawke says, stepping a little closer and leaning into his space. "Besides, I'm sure the Order knows something about being _wicked_ as well. All those recruits at the Blooming Rose..." She waggles her eyebrows suggestively. "Surely _you've_ learned _something_."

She doesn't put a hand on his arm, but she reaches out as though she means to, and then falls back to toy with the hem of her tunic instead. Cullen freezes, a look of panic crossing his face and sticking there. He laughs again, nervously, and Hawke can't keep the grin off her face any longer. "Not quite wicked enough, I see," she teases. "It's never too late to learn, you know. I'm sure I could give you a few _private_ lessons."

"I, ah, that is." Cullen coughs. "Perhaps another time," he manages, and she _could_ pounce, but there is a poison spider gland threatening to leak through the wax paper she's got it wrapped up in, so she decides to let him off the hook.

"Another time, indeed," she says. She can't decide if Cullen looks relieved or disappointed; perhaps he doesn't truly know himself. As she saunters away, she makes sure to swing her hips a little more than usual. Hawke has a feeling he's enjoying the view.

*

After the last embarrassingly public argument she's dragged into by Meredith and Orsino, Hawke avoids the Gallows. It isn't the first time either has tried to corner her, but it is the first time she hadn't managed to get away without having to give an actual opinion. Between that and the uncomfortable feeling she always has as the only known, free mage walking in that courtyard, she stays away. But Sandal, through Bodahn, has asked for a rune recipe, and so she ventures forth, to try her luck at the mage goods shop.

The Gallows still holds _one_ pleasure for Hawke, at least. She heads towards the giant weeping statues instead of immediately swinging left to conduct her business.

"Serah Knight Captain," she greets Cullen.

"Serah Champion," he replies, but his smile seems tired. "Well met, Hawke. I see that neither the Knight Commander nor the First Enchanter were able to scare you off for good."

"It _was_ a near thing, but it would be terrible for the Champion of Kirkwall to gain a reputation for cowardice," she says with a smile.

"Too true. What else would the people believe after your showing in single combat with the Arishok? Nothing but a coward could possibly have taken that fight on!"

Hawke laughs, but the atmosphere in the Gallows these days is oppressive, and it comes out quieter than she'd intended. Cullen picks up on her shift in mood, or, more likely, feels the same smothering weight himself. Kirkwall is at the edge of a storm, and they two are both expected to stop it.

"I am no doubt keeping you from your business here," Cullen says. "What would you have of me?"

"I just wanted to see how an old friend is doing in this difficult time," Hawke says. She's not sure when it became true, but it is. His position can't be any easier than hers; at least she only has to listen to Meredith when she gets ambushed in Hightown.

Cullen frowns. "After what happened in Ferelden, I told myself I would never again question the Order," he explains. "But it grows harder each day to tell whether I am serving the Templars or the Knight Commander. It may be they are no longer one and the same."

Hawke reaches out and knocks him on the armoured shoulder. "You're a good man, Cullen. If Meredith's aims are no longer the Order's, you'll know what to do."

"I- thank you, Champion. That means a lot."

"Now, now. Don't go all soft on me," Hawke says, stepping back to her usual distance. "And if you do ever need something, you know where to find me."

Cullen manages a smile. "A bed? Private lessons?"

Hawke laughs again, merrier this time. "Those too."

"Maker watch over you, Hawke."

Maker watch over them all.

End

*Bonus*

"Varric told me you were down here, Knight Captain," Hawke says, descending the last few steps to the lower courtyard in Skyhold. "Or should I say 'Commander'?" He hadn't been standing at the makeshift table when she'd smuggled herself in, but running straight into one of the few people in the Inquisition who could identify her on sight would have ruined the element of surprise.

Cullen smiles warmly at her as she comes to a stop by his desk of planks. "Just Cullen is fine, Champion."

"I haven't been called that in a while. The good old days in the City of Chains," she says, pulling a face. "Alright. Cullen it is."

She looks around the courtyard, taking in the muddy patches, the makeshift desk made of crates and planks, the tents housing the injured and dying. If the injured are out here in the cold, that must mean that the rooms in the fortress are worse. So much misery, and Kirkwall the spark. "I'm starting to think you've just got a thing for courtyards. I think I've seen you indoors all of once? In over ten years acquaintance?"

"Surely we're more than acquaintances by now," Cullen protests--a wicked grin spreads across Hawke's face--and Cullen freezes, like a rabbit who's just seen the shadow of a bird of prey. Slowly, surely, the center of his face goes red and the flush radiates out across his features just like Hawke remembers.

She leans a hip up against his table and carefully plants a hand in the center of the map he's got unrolled across it so she can lean into his space without risking knocking the map into a puddle. She tilts her head up to look at him, eyes wide, lips barely parted, and if anything, he goes redder, the tips of his ears so flushed they practically glow.

"Is that so? I seem to recall you turning down all of my many offers to _deepen_ our relationship in Kirkwall." She gives him a once over, and that familiar flush seeps down his neck, under his plate. After all these years, Hawke half wants to get him out of his armour just to see how far down she can make the blush go. "It's too late for a passionate night in the Gallows, but it's never too late for _you_ , Cullen. We could see how _deeply_ you can take me tonight."

"I, uh, that is," Cullen starts, voice choked. Hawke laughs, leaning back to give him a little space to breathe. He looks like he could use it. Her smiles melts into something less predatory, more teasing.

"At ease, Commander. We can't have you dying of apoplexy before I kill Corypheus again. Besides, I'm afraid I don't actually have the time to give you the attention you deserve." Hawke taps a spot on the map roughly where she remembers Crestwood being. "Your Inquisitor has me setting off for the far edge of Ferelden tomorrow morning, and the ravages of old age are catching up with me. I can't spend all night having wild sex and still be ready to hit the road bright and early. We'll have to restrain ourselves."

Cullen coughs, a fresh flush setting off across his face before fading into the mottled red still tinging his cheeks. "I'd forgotten how thrice-blighted good you were at that," he says at last.

"Why, Commander, I'm hurt!"

*

*Bonus the Second*

Adamant was...Adamant was. That's the best thing Hawke can say about it. The whole business was rotten from the start, and then losing Stroud...

Hawke wasn't sure the Grey Wardens would recover from that blow. She isn't sure she will: one last person she didn't, couldn't save. One last person who should have made it, but didn't because she was there, and she survived instead.

She doesn't have a lot of people to say goodbye to, especially here, in the heart of the Inquisition, but she's got a few. Cullen's in his office when she tracks him down.

"Hawke, it's good to see you. I hear you had quite an adventure."

"That's putting it mildly," she says with a grimace. "But I didn't come here to talk about that. I came to say goodbye."

"Goodbye?" Cullen sets the note he'd been reading down on his desk. "You're leaving?"

"I'm heading to Weisshaupt. The wardens should know what happened here, and you've a giant hole in the sky on your hands, so I figured I'd volunteer myself for the service."

"There are few I'd trust to handle delivering that message, but I'm sorry to see you go," Cullen says.

"I always knew you'd miss me," Hawke teases. She ambles over and sets herself against the edge of his desk so she can smirk up at him. "So, this is your last chance, Commander. Who knows what tomorrow holds? If we don't sleep together now, who knows if we'll ever get the opportunity again."

Cullen pinks across his cheeks and the bridge of his nose, but no more. He huffs a laugh. "Maker's breath, Hawke, is that the best you've got today? 'Tomorrow we may die?'"

Hawke laughs too. "I'll admit it wasn't my best, but _you_ don't usually notice. Anyway, that's not an answer. What do you say, one last roll in the hay?"

 _That_ gets the full-faced blush she was looking for. Her grin widens, and she bats her eyes at him just to watch him stammer.

"What's going on here?" asks the Inquisitor from the doorway.

"I was propositioning your Commander," Hawke says, waving the Inquisitor over. "But he says he's taken." In truth, he hadn't actually managed to get that out coherently, but it's the talk of the barracks. Even Hawke's heard.

"I did take him rather spectacularly," the Inquisitor agrees, face placid. Cullen goes about three shades darker and then literally hides his face in his hands. _Hawke's_ never gotten him to do _that_. She's almost jealous. "Just about where you're sitting, actually." The Inquisitor breaks into a grin, eyeing the bit of desk Hawke's leaning against.

"Maker's breath," Cullen mumbles into his gloves.

"Oh, I like you!" Hawke grins, clapping the Inquisitor on the shoulder. The Inquisitor laughs, graciously inclining her head.


End file.
